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from the so-they-printed-a-colourful-mask... dept.
A team of researchers from MIT and Harvard University has come up with a way to get 3-D printers to print objects using data sets rather than geometric representations. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the group describes their new technique and some of the ways they believe it could be used.
[...] To print an object on conventional 3-D printers, calculations are made regarding a digital description of an object, converting the numeric description to geometric shapes that can be used to print an object. The new technique, on the other hand, converts data that describes the digitized image to voxels (3-D pixels). That allows the printer to print voxels instead of shapes, with incredible precision—currently at a resolution of 2.3 million voxels per cubic centimeter.
In practice, this means taking data from a source such as an MRI machine, converting it, and then printing it in incredible detail. Additionally, like pixels, each individual voxel contains a color code that can be used to recreate the actual color of the real object—by mixing the familiar magenta, cyan, yellow and black, and of course white and clear. The result is an object that looks very much like the original object, say a human heart, or an ancient artifact. The researchers note that their technique can also be used to create new objects from scratch on a 3-D modeling computer and then print them. To demonstrate, they designed some interesting objects such as a very intricate mask with subtle color changes, and 3-D printed it—and in so doing, gave birth to an entirely new art form.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Corelli's A on Monday June 04 2018, @03:43AM (2 children)
I'm not sure what this breathless statement is getting at. There are techniques that do not use data?
Color me cynical. They invented the raster.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 04 2018, @03:53AM (1 child)
But it is a 3D raster! (grin)
And, being opaque, anything that's "printed" below the surface is useless to direct exploration by human senses - might as well print them in monochrome in the cheapest color available and furthermore print only the absolute necessary shell required for mechanical integrity.
Color me unimpressed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:47AM
You should quickly patient that.